Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

       It has been nearly three months since John's accident and we have grown so much closer together.

    This year we are so grateful for everything that God has given to us. We celebrated Christmas with a whole new appreciation for the ones we love and cherish.

Having John home this Christmas season has been the biggest blessing I have ever personally received. It is more than anything I could have ever asked for. 

We have been able to spend time with most of our family members this year and what a blessing that has been! We are looking forward to a new and exiting 2016 and all the surprises in store! We have a lot of new things ahead this coming year! We are looking forward to sharing the progress and enjoying the journey with you all! 

Photo Credit to: Reflections of Silver Photography ( Diana Lipford)

We would love to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Please be safe in  your travels and we will keep you all in our prayers! 

New Things

This week John and I had the opportunity to try several new things. We received many blessings and are very excited to share with you this weeks experiences.

First I'd like to share about the doctor appointments beginning early last week. Monday we went to SRT prosthetics, Fort Wayne. John was asked to perform an agility test to see what category of prosthetic for which he would qualify. The five different levels of prosthetics are K0, K1, K2, K3, and K4. 

John tested into the K4 level which is the highest level of mobility you can test. This leaves him with the most and best options for prosthetics. They will be fitting him for the prosthetic in a week or so. The socket he will be using is a vacuum-suspended socket which will give him the most secure fit. This way he can go about the days activities and not worry about his prosthetic slipping or moving throughout the day. 

Tuesdays appointment was a follow up on Johns left foot with the plastic surgeon. The doctor was very pleased with how the foot looked and decided to release John from his care. This means NO MORE doctor appointments for the left foot! YAY!

During our visit on Tuesday one of our physicians walked by us. John said hello and began chatting with him. He proceeded to tell us that he may have something for us. He came back a few minutes later saying that a local radio station had done a fund raiser called "The Brigadoon Penny Pitch". This is where they auction of items or people can just donate to the cause which goes to local non-profits. Someone had won Colts tickets through their donations and turned around and donated the tickets asking that they be given to a burn survivor. We were the very blessed recipients of those Colts tickets. Later on that day we got a phone call asking if John would be willing to share on the radio his story and how the Burn Council had helped him . We happily agreed. (If possible I will attach the audio below.)

The last big thing for this week was obviously the Colts game! Unfortunately they lost 10-16 but it was SO much fun to experience a professional football game and enjoy the atmosphere for the first time. We had such a good time and we were so grateful for the opportunity! 

We would like to extend a huge thank you to the anonymous person who donated the tickets. Another huge thank you to 1190 WOWO Radio and the Brigadoon Penny Pitch for holding the auction! Also we would like to extend a very grateful thank you to the Burn Council. I will be doing a follow up blog just about them and how helpful they were to our family during his stay at the hospital. 

Thank you to everyone who has continued to pray for us and support us through this amazing journey! We are so blessed to have you all in our lives and God continues to show us daily His love through his people! We hope to be a blessing to others as we have been blessed. 

What Have We Been Up To?

What have we been up to? 

This week has been very busy for us. We received a phone call Monday morning saying we could take the splint off Johns residual limb and to do dressing changes once a day. The limb looked great and we were very pleased with how it was coming along. Thursday we had an appointment to see the doctor who took out the stitches and was extremely pleased with John's progress and the movement he had in the limb. 

John tried some new things this week to help with the phantom pain. He has dabbled so far with mirror therapy and it seems to help some. John is still dealing with a lot of pain so we are looking for other ways to handle it other than pain medicine, which isn't a long term fix for the pain. 

This week we have some more appointments. Tomorrow we are headed to Ft Wayne for a prosthetic appointment. This is to get John started on the shrinker socks. We can now start this process because the stitches are out. We also have an appointment on Tuesday for John's left foot to check the skin graft on his second toe which is looking very good. 

John and I have enjoyed this time together so much! We have been able to spend so much time together that we wouldn't normally have. We went to our church Christmas party

and had the pleasure of helping decorating with John's mother and sister-in-law. We were very      pleased with the end result. 

 Please continue to pray with us as we still faced with many decisions on how to move forward. God has been so good to us and we are grateful for His wonderful Grace. 

Keeping Busy

This week has been about keeping busy. We have most certainly accomplished that in several different ways. We set up our christmas tree, did all of our christmas shopping, had a doctor appointment, and did some construction on our house. 

You might wonder how we managed to get all those things done. Johns wonderful family has helped us immensely. John's dad has helped us with the construction on our house faithfully and we are so grateful. This weeks goal was to get some more tile down in the kitchen and dinning room. 

 

 

 

Getting prepared for Christmas early is a big deal because we don't know how many appointments John may have through the Holiday Season. So John was so kind to do all the Christmas shopping with me! I am so thankful for that because he is so good about what would be a very nice appropriate gift. Our Christmas tree this year is very simple and it could not be more perfect for us! 

Johns doctor appointment went very well. The plastic surgeon was very pleased with how the skin graft was looking on Johns second toe on his left foot. We have a follow up appointment with him in two weeks. We also have an appointment with Johns other doctor on December 10th. This will be to check the residual limb and take out the stitches and get John into shrinker socks. The purpose of the shrinker socks is to get Johns limb shaped correctly for prosthetic; also to help reduce and shrink the limb for the best mobility. John is starting to experience more phantom pain, which is normal but very uncomfortable. We are hoping and have been told that over time the pain will fade and get better. 

John was able to meet with a fellow amputee this week. He is working with our prosthetic company and was so helpful in answering many questions we both had. He also answered questions we had not thought of yet. The very encouraging thing about him was he was a very young man, similar in age to John and very active. He gave us a very tangible idea of what we could expect moving forward.

Thank you again for all the support! We really appreciate it! Keep your eyes peeled for more blog posts!

The Full Story

What happened?

Many of you have not heard the full story of what happened to John. I am going to try my best to describe the story accurately. September 23rd, 2015 John was working on a tv antenna tower with his brother Joel. They were replacing a section of tower and this particular job requires two people. John climbed up the tower and hooked onto the tower with his harness he was wearing for safety precautions. Joel was on the ground on a phone call with another employee. Joel heard a humming/buzzing sound and glanced over his shoulder to catch the end of John being electrocuted. It only lasted a brief moment. John fell back away from the electrical wires. Joel started yelling at which point the customer came out of his house. Joel called 911 and the customer climbed the tower to try to lift Johns head. Joel reached 911 and dispatch said someone would be on their way. Joel then climbed the tower to help the customer hold John up. John was moaning and groaning but was never conscious. The entire time John was moving his arms, so Joel had to hold him against the tower to keep him from coming in contact with the power lines again. When the EMT's and police arrived they were unsure of how to help get John down because they are not normally trained in tower rescues. The entire process of getting John down took a total of 30-45 minutes. Had Joel not been there John wouldn't have survived. 

Once John was down he was taken by ambulance to a nearby field and airlifted to South Bend. At South Bend John had a CT scan to check his head for any brain damage. The tests came back and John was completely fine in that area. The Dr's were unsure of any of Johns vital organs at that time and could give me no guarantees. I was able to see John in South Bend before they airlifted him to Ft. Wayne. He woke up for a very short period of time and he looked very scared and confused. He was intubated and was trying to fight off the nurses, myself, and his father. They ended up having to sedate him for his own safety. At that time I was able to see the outward injuries to John. He had burns on his face, neck, right elbow, and extensive burns to both feet. They then airlifted John to Ft Wayne. 

Once John made it to Ft Wayne I received a phone call from the helicopter team that John had made it safely and was still in stable condition. I had another hour and a half before I reached the hospital. When we reached the hospital I was a little frantic to say the least. A very nice security guard let us in  and brought us to the waiting room where I would spend the next week and a half waiting for John to wake up. They finally let us back to see him and it was the scariest thing I have ever seen. My husband was intubated and not moving at all. I had never felt so alone. The nurses told us it would be several days before they knew the extent of his injuries. Basically when the body suffers this severe of an injury everything shuts down except what keeps you alive. In the next several days the rest of Johns vital organs would either start working or not. (Thank God everything did.) 

That is the whole story as best as I can describe. Obviously I cannot get every single detail in because  I would be typing all night. Needless to say John is a miracle and we serve a wonderful God! 

John's family and my family along with some very close friends were so helpful throughout those first few days and past months. I am eternally grateful for the amazing people who have reached out and helped my husband and myself. What a testimony to God to have His people take care of one another! I probably would never have chosen this road for myself but I am so thankful to God for seeing what we needed and moving in our lives to bring us closer to Him and each other.

We are home now and on the mend. We are looking forward to what God has in store in this next phase in our lives.

                 It's a wonderful life.

   This is my first blog post and as many of you know my life has changed dramatically in the past two months. Two months ago my husband was electrocuted and in an instant our lives were forever changed. 

   John lost his big toe and part of his second toe on his left foot. His right foot was

completely disfigured and bones and tendons were exposed. His stay at the hospital was a month long. When John came home life changed even more. I became a 24/7 caregiver. That included dressing changes, antibiotic administrating, showering, toileting, and everyday tasks. That all seems overwhelming. Honestly every second makes you feel unprepared and incompetent. But everyday goes a little smoother. 

       

   Yesterday was another big change, (below the knee amputation of his right leg); but God knows what we need and gave us peace about the decision we had to make. 

It's going to be a life full of changes. 

This is our new life and it is beyond  wonderful.